How to choose and store bakery and pastry products correctly? We learn to distinguish good bread from bad, and fresh cakes from spoiled and hazardous to health.
Where to buy bread and sweet pastries?
Buy bread and bakery products in specially equipped retail outlets – only there are the right conditions for their storage and sale created: ventilation, separate trays. When buying baked goods hand-held, you run the risk of buying spoiled or improperly made products.
Signs of quality bread and pastry
Choose bread with the correct shape, without dents, cracks or side sagging. However, cuts and pricks are permissible on the surface of hearth bread.
The bread should be well baked, the crumb should be free of lumps or voids, elastic and evenly porous.
Flour products should not be too fragile, quickly crumble. If there are a lot of broken gingerbread or cookies in the package, it is better to refuse the purchase.
If the product is packaged, read the label carefully. The simpler the composition and the more natural products it contains, the healthier it is!
It is strictly forbidden to eat bread on which at least a little mold has appeared cakes and pastries with an expired shelf life
Signs of poor quality (unsafe) bread and baked goods
Appearance
Do not buy bread with mold, suspicious stains, dents, cracks, side sagging, too thin top crust that lags behind the crumb, or, conversely, very thick and hard. The bottom crust of good bread should be free of ash and charcoal, and the surface should not be sticky or darkened. If the product is too fragile and crumbles, then it is of poor quality. A color that is too dark or too light should alert you.
Crumb condition
Avoid bread with a moist, dense, sticky crumb, in which you can see lumps, layers of flour, mold or foreign objects.
Taste and smell
Do not eat bread with a bitter, sharply sour or musty taste, with a musty or moldy smell, off-flavors, and also if the taste and smell do not correspond to the selected variety.
Signs of poor quality (unsafe) confectionery (cookies, gingerbread, cakes, pastries)
The presence of at least one of the following symptoms makes the product unfit for food. Remember – poisoning with spoiled cream confectionery is especially dangerous.
Appearance
Do not buy deformed products with a sticky surface, kinks, dents, smeared or blurry patterns, with a hardened or white coating on the surface, with overly candied fondant glaze.
Interior view
Do not eat products with lumps and layers of flour, mold, or foreign objects visible inside.
Taste and smell
Products with any foreign tastes (sour, rancid, moldy, stale) and burnt smell are of poor quality.
Storage of bread and pastry
The shelf life of bakery and confectionery products is usually indicated on the packaging. If the product was sold without packaging, refer to the following information.
White bread retains its useful properties for up to 24 hours from the moment it is baked.
The shelf life of rye and rye-wheat bread is slightly longer – 36 hours.
Bakery products weighing less than 200 g can be stored for up to 16 hours.
It is undesirable to buy bread in reserve – it is better to buy fresh bread. In extreme cases, it is permissible to store bread in the freezer separately from meat, fish and other raw products, and defrost it in a microwave oven or in a dry frying pan before use.
Store baked goods in a breathable bread bin or cloth bag rather than a plastic bag.
Cakes and pastries with cream are stored in the refrigerator for the period indicated on the package.
